Worklessness by gender and ethnicity

What does this graph show?

The graph below looks at worklessness by age, split by gender and ethnicity. It shows for each group the proportion of the non-student population that are not in work (general worklessness is shown instead of unemployment here to reflect the higher levels of women not in or seeking work). As worklessness refers to those not in paid work, it includes those doing unpaid care or unpaid help with the family business.
The graph shows that among men the trend is reasonably straight forward. Over 20% of men aged 25 to 49 of Black Caribbean, Black African or Bangladeshi ethnicity were workless, twice the rate amongst those of White British, Indian and other White ethnicities (at around 10%). For men aged 16-24 the ethnicity trend was the same but the workless proportion generally doubles. This means the gap by ethnicity was much greater among younger age groups.

The trend amongst women was much less consistent. 65% of Bangladeshi women aged 25-49 were workless followed by 56% among Pakistani women, for both of these ethnic groups the workless rates for those aged 16-24 was lower at 50% and 52% respectively. For all other ethnic groups the level of worklessness among young adults was higher, but the gap was much smaller than the gap for men.

Data used

Census 2011

Indicator last updated: 11 October 2013